Page 246 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

Chapter 28

THE COOPERATIVE CONTRACT
IN INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT

R. Michael Young
Liquid Narrative Group, North Carolina State University

Abstract Interactions with computer games demonstrate many of the same social and
communicative conventions that are seen in conversations between people. I
propose that a co-operative contract exists between computer game players and
game systems (or their designers) that licenses both the game players’ and the
game designers’ understanding of what components of the game mean.
As computer and console games become more story-oriented and interactivity
within these games becomes more sophisticated, this co-operative contract will
become even more central to the enjoyment of a game experience. This chapter
describesthenatureoftheco-operativecontract andoneway that wearedesigning
game systems to leverage the contract to create more compelling experiences.

1. Introduction

When people speak with one another, they co-operate. Even when we argue,
we are collaborating together to exchange meaning. In fact, we agree on a
wide range of communicative conventions; without these conventions, it would
be impossible to understand what each of us means when we say something.
This is because much of what we mean to communicate is conveyed not by the
explicit propositional content of our utterances, but by the implicit, intentional
way that we rely or fail to rely upon conventions of language use when we
compose our communication.
Across many media, genres and communicative contexts, the expectation
of co-operation acts much like a contract between the participants in a com-
municative endeavor. By establishing mutual expectations about how we’ll be
using the medium of our conversation, the contract allows us to eliminate much
of the overhead that communication otherwise would require. Our claim is
that this compact between communicative participants binds us just as strongly
when we interact with computer games as when we interact with each other in